Social networking - or social and not working?

For many employers, their first instinct is to ban the use of social media at work. No more Facebook. No more Twitter. And, seemingly, no more engagement, as younger employees become disgruntled at the prohibition of a tool that’s all-pervasive in their personal lives.

Earlier this week, Optus released a study on the future of the workplace. They commissioned an independent research company – Stancombe – to survey and interview more than 300 IT and HR executives around Australia. One of their findings was that 69 per cent of decision-makers predict that allowing employees to have access to social media will be important within the next five years.

A UK survey showed half of employees under 24 refuse to work for an employer that bans social media.

So why place a ban on it today? Well, their greatest fear (by far) is the possibility that productivity will decline. They worry that if their employees are busy updating their Facebook status and tweeting their thoughts, they’ll be distracted from completing the work they’re paid to do.

But, at the same time, they realise social media is a handy tool for the retention of staff. Too many restrictions on what employees can access can drive them away to a competitor, and that could cost more than any impact on productivity.

A survey released in the UK this week revealed that half of employees under 24 refuse to work for an employer that bans social media at work. And that’s in a country where more than 1 million young people are unemployed. It’s safe to assume that in Australia, where employees have a greater choice over where they work, the results might be similar.

Perhaps that’s why one quarter of respondents in the Optus research say they allow their staff to use social media on the condition it’s monitored by the IT department. In the meantime, employees can still use social media at home or on their smartphone, and sometimes they use it to vent about their job.

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Fair Work Australia heard a case recently about an employee who was sacked for making negative comments on Facebook about her place of work. The tribunal found in favour of the employee because she didn’t specify the name of her employer, but still, it’s a reminder that all employers – whether or not they prohibit social media – should have a policy in place that details what constitutes inappropriate behaviour online.

Rami Mandow is a social media consultant specialising in the SME market. I asked him for the ways in which employers could incorporate social media at work so that it’s a benefit rather than a productivity killer.

One of his suggestions is to “build a Wiki and crowdsource ideas". It’s similar to Wikipedia. It involves the creation of an internet platform that enables managers and employees to add relevant information, and that information can then be edited and peer-reviewed.

Another idea is to “build an internal social network.” Employees can design their own profiles, upload images, provide useful links, add work-related content, and eventually “this will reduce the volume of email communication". In an era of email overload, that can only be a good thing.

Despite their reticence in granting employees access to social media, many managers are already using it to their own advantage. Take, for example, an Australian poll of 1200 people by Telstra, in which one quarter of bosses admitted to trawling Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to check up on candidates before hiring them.

More than half of the managers declared they'd rejected applications solely based on what they saw online. Tasteless pictures, employer criticisms, and discriminatory comments were the main reasons for the rejections.

One quarter of bosses admitted to trawling Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to check up on candidates.

And that goes to show that what employees really want at work might actually be the last thing they need.